THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 70, April 22, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IS THERE REALLY AN ENERGY CRISIS?
By Alan Caruba
POLITICS, ECONOMICS, & PETROLEUM SUPPLY: THE MYTH OF "PEAK OIL" DEPLETION OF EXISTING & FUTURE
UNDISCOVERED RESERVES OF OIL -- WHAT DETERMINES THE KEY FACTORS THAT AFFECT OIL SUPPLY & PRICES --
AMERICAN NATIONAL INTERESTS, INSTABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, & THE FLOW OF OIL TO THE WORLD MARKET --
THE NEED FOR AMERICA TO RESIST BEING STAMPEDED BY ENVIRONMENTALISTS, ENERGY ALARMISTS, & LIBERAL
LEFTIST POLITICIANS INTO EMBRACING SUCH HALF-BAKED SCHEMES AS GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED ETHANOL
PRODUCTION OR SUCH PIPE DREAMS AS WIND & SOLAR ENERGY
FULL STORY:
A little news item in an April 15, 2007, edition of my daily newspaper was headlined “Saudi Arabia Proposes to Boost Oil
Production.” The increase was intended to “meet domestic and international demand while insuring ‘fair’ world prices,”
said King Abdullah. Indeed, OPEC, the oil cartel, had twice cut production, “contributing,” said the news item, “to relative
stability that has kept benchmark crude between $50 and $60 a barrel — down from the record highs of more than $78 a
barrel last Summer. Current prices are around 40% above 2004 levels.”
The world is not about to run out of oil, but the price is likely to remain where the Saudis and other oil producing nations
want it, knowing that too high a price retards the billions that must be invested to find new reserves and then extract,
transport and refine it. They know that the world is growing hungrier for oil as nations like China and India industrialize
and become major economic centers.
The petroleum we use today is the result of careful decisions made a decade or two ago by the world’s greatest masters of
risk, the oil companies upon which we depend to keep the world’s economic engine running. If the price of oil was less in
the past, it is because fewer nations were competing for oil and it could be extracted from places less costly than deep
oceans.
These days, when I hear our politicians talk of “energy independence,” while often refusing to allow our own reserves of
oil and natural gas to be tapped, I am mindful that they are deceiving us.
This was clarified in an excellent policy analysis published recently by the Cato Institute. The authors are Eugene Gholz, an
assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and Daryl G. Press, an associate professor of
government at Dartmouth University. It had six pages of footnotes as an indication of how thoroughly researched it was.
The title of the analysis is Energy Alarmism: The Myths That Make Americans Worry About Oil.
The authors of the Cato analysis assert that the notion of ‘peak oil’ depletion of existing and future undiscovered
reserves of oil is a myth. This is based on what they determined is “scant evidence and dubious models of how the oil
market responds to scarcity.” That is very good news.
The report repeats what every Economics 101 student knows (or is supposed to know): “Market forces, modified by the
cartel behavior of OPEC, determine the key factors that affect oil supply and prices.” And now you know (or should know)
why a tiny news story about Saudi Arabia’s intention to pump more oil is an important indicator.
Perhaps the most important element of the Cato analysis is the finding that the use of U.S. military power in the Middle East
is counterproductive to our interests there. “Past efforts to increase stability in oil-producing areas by supporting dictators,
policing violent regions, or spreading democracy have a dubious track record.”
“In fact, the United States has led 17 efforts at democratic
nation-building since 1900. Two of those cases, Iraq and
Afghanistan, are still under way, though neither appears
promising. Of the other 15 cases, only 4 resulted in
democracies lasting 10 years or longer.”
What most Americans do not know is that the world’s major oil companies have wisely diversified their oil holdings to insure
that any perturbation in the Middle East will not significantly impact the flow of oil to the world market. One of the regions
where oil exists in abundance is Africa. Russia has huge amounts. The Pacific Basin is another, and even the Gulf of Mexico
still holds great promise of more oil. More reserves exist off our continental shelf on both coasts.
We will surely continue to be bombarded by self-serving politicians and others telling us that China poses a threat to the
world oil market or that we have to dramatically reduce our use of oil, but the facts do not support these claims. Proposals to
raise taxes on gas consumption only hide the politicians' greed for funding their many dubious “earmarked” projects.
The truth is to be found in the Cato analysis and elsewhere, if you can resist being stampeded by political environmentalists
and their Liberal Leftist allies into drastically altering our economy by embracing such half-baked schemes as federally
subsidized ethanol production or the nonsense of wind and solar energy. The good news is that the bad news is wrong.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity